Spatial Rift: Fast Paced Combat

[Saija Rii]

After reading more about the Witch Elf on these boards, I am interested in playing one. However, Invisibility isn't fun to me, and while I was cleaning my room these images just popped into my head.

An option that has nothing to do with stealth, and everything to do with fear, stage precense, and fast paced combat.

Here are some of my ideas, please note that I view it as a whole, and not seperate choices.

First off, the Witch Elf is about presence. At first I thought maybe we could give her an innate aura of fear making her enemies clumsy, but I quickly dismissed that as stupid because no matter how often you Dark Elves may say us High Elves suck, we frankly arn't afraid of you, and I highly doubt the dwarves are either. Then I thought, how about intimidation. Intimidation isn't like fear, and it is very viable that even the hardiest of warriors would be intimidated by Witch Elves.

Intimidation would be an innate aura surrounding every Witch Elf. It will start out small, but the more you add to your Stage Presence (More on that later) the larger the radius will become, 'till theoretically every enemy on the field will feel this Intimidation.

Intimidation will have different effects on different races and classes, and it may even increase to fear or terror. Plain old intimidation is just a small damage debuff, but it only applies to enemies when they attack you (The Witch Elf). Fear would be like clumsy, they are more likely to miss, and terror... well lets just say it rarely happens, and it would be quite a dissadvantage for thy enemy.

Stage Presence as I mentioned earlier would be one of the keys to intimidation. The more you kill enemies, and the more you use special moves, battle cries, fury screams, and all that good stuff the greater it becomes which contributes to the radius and effectivness of Intimidation. I think that Stage Presence is also very important because it adds to the 'Witch Elf is in your face' view, and along with that it also realistacly reduces damage you take.

Now Intimidation by itself isn't enough to make you viable. Sure, the better Witch Elves will be able to take advantage of it and Stage Presence to become quite powerfull, but you still arn't a tank, and if people are prepared for you, you could still die.

So Intimidation will also open up single target debuffs which you apply to yourself, causeing the next enemy to hurt you to have temporary fear and they CAN'T hit you for a period of time. These abilities would be unlocked as your Intimidation and Stage Presence is increased.

Now with all of this, it still isn't quite enough, you are still rather flimsy, and you could still die a little suddenly... So now we add in 'Spatial Rifts'.

Spatial Rifts, something I am feeling giddy about. It will be very skill based, and something that you sure as hell can't pull off without paying attention. You will enter Spatial Rift mode when you need to get to someone real fast. You click Spatial Rift, and all the colors will get inverted, and your cam will have zoomed out. You will see a grid over the terrain, and simplified versions of the characters. You then proceed to draw a line with up to three stops. Each stop will be equally spaced apart and you can't control them This will be timed, a very short timer, a few seconds at most and then it is released. The enemy will see you first standing one place, then another, and another, and then boom. In their face screaming litanies to the God of Murder and emptying the internal organs from their bodies.

There is a limit to how far you can go. And I suck with measurments but it will be one in which you can't spatial rift accross great distances, maybe a few yards each stop.

I am bad with timers and cool downs as well, so I am sorry, I don't have a recommendation for them. My goal with the single debuffs unlocked in Intimidation is that they can be used pretty often but, they only last on the enemy for short amounts of time. On top of that, all Intimidation abilities are all defencive, as the goal is to keep you alive so you can kill people.

As far as Spatial Rift, you should be able to use it fairly often, maybe once every two enemies or so. I also think the cool down should vary. If you use it while not engaged in melee combat with someone, the cool down should be short (I.E. you are hitting someone, its alright if you are getting shot). However if you use it soon after exiting melee combat, or while still in it, the cool down should be very long. The goal of it is not to escape, but you would have the option to use it to retreat from time to time.

I think this is a hell of alot better then stealth, and would be alot more fun (Though it would need to be tweaked alot I assume). Any thoughts on my idea? Please post. And if my idea doesn't fit the lore of Witch Elves, or needs to be altered abit to fit it, please say so.

Also, any recommendations on cool down timers and duration timers?

[Buckethead Wendy]

I like the idea of the intimidation aura, with the whole "more bad I am, less damage gets done to me" thing. Keeps people trying to attack, which is always a plus (and something this game is focusing on).


The spatial rift idea is interesting, but from a designer stand point would probably be a nightmare to implement. Inverting colors, adding grids, allowing the player to draw lines to different places? Just seems to be a massive idea that would require loads of things that probably were never intended to be put into the game. But saying that, I'm all for anything that does not include stealth.....

[Saija Rii]

I like the idea of the intimidation aura, with the whole "more bad I am, less damage gets done to me" thing. Keeps people trying to attack, which is always a plus (and something this game is focusing on).

Witch Elves run and scream semi-naked on the battle field, Intimidation just makes sence IMO.

And its not just that foes are doing less damage, they are shaking in their boots and having a hard time using their weapons.

I can just imagine a Witch Elf breaking through a defencive line of Swordmasters and running up a hill towards a lone Arch Mage and a pair of Shadow Warriors. "SHOOT HER!" The Archmage would be screaming, the Shadow Warriors would be having a hard time nocking their bows and then bam. Dead Archmage.

The spatial rift idea is interesting, but from a designer stand point would probably be a nightmare to implement. Inverting colors, adding grids, allowing the player to draw lines to different places? Just seems to be a massive idea that would require loads of things that probably were never intended to be put into the game. But saying that, I'm all for anything that does not include stealth.....
Ah, I got the Spatial Rift idea from Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the DS. There wasn't anything similar to it but it was entirely controlled from the stylus.

I was also thinking about the Assassin in Guild Wars, but frankly their way of transportion was kind of clumsy. Nothing quite as accurate as drawing lines. I figured it would need to be really fast considering Witch Elves have no armor.

Maybe clicking dots?

Like just clicking at the three places you want to land? You could also only click once or twice too, and then just click proceed, to do it without doing all three for smaller distances.

[pzykozis]

nice idea but, i think a simple lightning fast dive into the target would work. Though this of course purely for ease of programming and i think that the spatial rift idea whilst awesome sounding is slightly gimmicky, i also think it would get annoying in the end.

[Saija Rii]

nice idea but, i think a simple lightning fast dive into the target would work. Though this of course purely for ease of programming and i think that the spatial rift idea whilst awesome sounding is slightly gimmicky, i also think it would get annoying in the end.

Like I said, it may need quite a bit of tweaking. And if it does get annoying I think we could still alter it. The main goal is for it to look impressive and for the players behind the characters going 'Oh , here she comes!'. I understand the drawing lines thing may not be for everyone. I personally love Stylus Control in Ninja Gaiden, others hated it with a passion. I am sure there could be a short cut that is just as kick , but less annoying in the long run.

nice idea but, i think a simple lightning fast dive into the target would work.

I think a lightning fast dive wouldn't be as impressive, it would also make the class less unique. Though I suppose you could spice the dive up a bit, and it could be every bit as impressive looking.

[Lord Tareq]

I love the intimiation idea, will help witch elves survival, and be compeltely in character with them. The spatial rift just sounds out of place to me, far too complicated. I'd prefer a dive/sprint to an enemy while perhaps also stunning/incapacitating everyone standing in your way for 1 or 2 seconds

[Xurré]

As others I quite like the intimidation aura idea, though I do have a few concerns with it.

First, it seems like it’ll primarily help the Witch Elf against melee classes, since the aura radiates out from the Witch Elf it’ll more often be close to her than further away. Basically, you always get the benefit against melee opponents, and only against ranged opponents if you’ve built it up a lot (or if they’re standing close by).

Secondly, while it’ll definitely help her get stronger as the fight progresses it doesn’t really help initially (yes, I understand that’s why you have the second idea there too). Part of the fear for the class at the moment is that they’d need stealth to survive that initial period and intimidation doesn’t quite help with that.

Third is that it’s likely that other classes already have some kind of debuf auras and such (not sure, but it seems likely). Though intimidation is unique in that the aura only benefits the Witch Elf (as I understand it).

And finally is that it’s not all that involved of an ability. It’s just there and increases as you do what you normally do; you’re not really doing anything special to build it. Though I guess one could improve this by having special presence building skills (in the same way as she has frenzy building skills).

Oh, and one more thing, does something like this work for the Witch Hunter too? I’ve never quite seen them as ‘present’ characters, though perhaps they could have some effect of inspiring futility of evil or such.


The spatial rifts idea is interesting too and I can see how it would look in use. But as others have said it sounds quite complicated and involved to develop (I’m not sure what the stylus thing is you’re talking about, but that too sounds complex because it’s quite different from what the game already has).

But that doesn’t mean the idea has no merit. A friend of mine suggested that they should really have some kind of blink ability and I think that ties in more or less with what you’re suggesting.

What I’m thinking is that when you activate the ability you can teleport a very short distance and once you’re there you’re momentarily vulnerable if the enemy can find and target you quickly enough (which I guess is what the point is of the multiple steps instead of just a single shadow-step like teleport). Now, as you first use it some timer starts running or such and until that timer runs out you can teleport as much as you want (note that this is limited by temporarily being unable to do nothing/it taking a few moment for the teleport to wind up). But when the timer runs out the ability goes into cooldown and you can’t use it for a while.

I’m thinking here something along the lines of City of Heroes teleport, only much, much shorter distance (and only on the ground; no flying teleporting) and with a shorter powerup animation. You click somewhere on the ground (within range; I’m sure they’ll have AoE attacks with limited range already anyway so the system should already exist), your character takes a few moments to ‘power up’ and then you teleport (maybe showing some blurry effect of the Witch rushing from one point to the next, since it’s after all not a real teleport but just running crazily fast). Then you have a second or so to click your next spot (or the sequence is broken and it goes into cooldown) where it shows the anim again (during which you can be attacked). Or, if close enough, you could click an enemy target to get next to them. And since the delay is before the teleport you could immediately let loose with melee attacks.

This would, I think, make for a quite involved mechanic that gives you the sense you describe (an “oh shit” feeling of the Witch Elf coming closer) while being not all that complicated (pretty much using existing interfaces) and it solves the problems of closing in range as well as positional attacks (never know on which side the Witch will appear next to you). And it’s a gameplay mechanic that I’m quite sure doesn’t exist in the game yet, differentiating them from the other melee damage classes as well.

Overall, it needed some tweaking and simplification perhaps, but I quite like it. :)

And bravo on the original thinking.


- Xurré

[Saija Rii]

Aye, it seems that the Spatial Rift idea is too complex to many, and I am starting to see the merit of the 'warps' and 'spear dives' you all have been suggesting.

And I am glad you all like the Intimidation idea.

To answer Xurre's question relating to Witch Hunters as well... Yes, they should probably have something similar to Intimidation and Stage Presence as well. I just don't picture them sneaking in the back door to a witch's home, I see them marching through the center of town and then breaking down the front door. However, I don't see Witch Hunter's using a Spacial Rift or 'spear dive' or what have you, I think they should probably have some more armor.

[Lobster Mooch]

Awesome idea on the intimidation, one of the best I have heard for the WE. As for the problem with initially getting into combat, lets look at the two killers, Range Damage and magic.

The Magic one is fairly simple to counteract as WE should inherently have a higher magic resist, as fits their lore (in the TT the cauldron of blood has a magic resistance, not a stretch at all to have it apply to all Witch Elves).

The big whammy I think is coming from Physical ranged damage, to counteract this I can see something like this working, first they need a long distance sprint ability (like a charge) to get into combat, a normal sprint ability in which when active reduces chances for enemies to hit by 50% but it is a short duration effect (the 50% negative modifier should also apply to the WE should she get into combat with speed buff still on) they should also have an ability along the lines of the feel no pain type (I am sure you guys can come up with a better name like Fury of Khaine or something), in which the WE ignores x% of ranged damage while the buff is on, again short duration is all that is necessary so she can get in range to use the charge like ability, there for adressing the issues of survivability prior to combat.

In general they should have higher chances to dodge, seeing as they are agile even by Elf standards, and have no armour getting in the way (at least very little).

Of course they could also have skills similar in style to the selection from the TT in the temple of khaine part of the army book.

With the above, some of them are indeed skills and abilities typical to rogues and stealth classes in MMOs, however whereas with rogues etc. the idea is to sneak around invisible, stun lock/ incapacitate people and deal alot of one shot damage. The idea behind the WE is to be able to close distance rapidly, avoiding damage while doing so and frenzily chopping people into bits.

These skills also fit in well with the archetypes, the enemy tanks are gonna want to make sure they intercept the WE, and the WE team mates are gonna want to engage that tank to give the WE a chance to get through to the casters/ranged DPS. In short, it makes the WE very cool by using rogueish skills and being the exact opposite of a rogue, and still encouraging people to play their archetype. And look, no stealth!

[Dukha]

That is indeed one wise crustacean.
Me likes and approve :D